ABVP’s ‘anarchic’ character

Resort to violence for imposing its misconceived nationalist ideology is not something which the Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) has recently acquired. It received nationwide attention only because its operations were taking place in the national capital.

So long as the BJP remained mostly out of power in the States and at the Centre, the ABVP kept its activities confined to demonstrations on college/university issues, by and large. As the BJP started gaining power in the States, the ABVP also started coming out of its veneer of an organisation concerned with the students’ problems. The BJP governments even placed the police force in the service of the rowdy ABVP activists.

The late Madhya Pradesh Governor Ram Naresh Yadav who, though a Congressman, had become virtually a lackey of the State’s BJP Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan to utter chagrin of the Congress leaders of the State. He had been willingly endorsing wrong actions and decisions of the BJP government. Even he had lost his patience with the ABVP in the State and was constrained to write a letter to the Chief Minister directing him to ‘keep a check on the anarchic ABVP activists as they are indulging in unlawful activities and polluting the academic atmosphere in the State.’ Did Chouhan heed the Governor’s advice? Nonsense!

Prof. H S Sabharwal of the Madhav College in Ujjain was asked to conduct the students’ union elections in August 2006. Following some irregularities, he cancelled the elections which infuriated the ABVP activists. Prof Sabharwal was thrashed by the activists and eventually he died.

Initially, the police arrested 22 persons, mostly belonging to the Congress, in connection with the rowdiness on the Madhav College campus. However, under public pressure (the attack on Prof. Sabharwal had made the national headlines), 12 students owing allegiance to ABVP were named accused in the murder. Ultimately, the challan under Sections 302 and 147 IPC was put up against six of them. They were: Shashi Ranjan Akela (State President of ABVP); Vimal Tomar (Divisional Organising Secretary, ABVP); Vishal Rajoria (member of State Executive, ABVP); Hemant Dube (District Convener, ABVP); Sudhir Yadav and Pankaj Mishra (activists of ABVP).

While the police ‘investigation’ in the murder was going on, the Chief Minister had a 20-minute one-to-one talk with Vimal Tomar, one of the six accused. Tomar, then in custody in Ujjain, was admitted to the State-run M Y Hospital at Indore purportedly for treatment. Chauhan met him there. Tomar was ‘cured’ immediately after meeting the Chief Minister and was sent back to the custody at Ujjain.

As the witnesses (even the policemen who were eye-witnesses) started turning hostile, the murdered Professor’s son Himanshu knocked on the doors of the Supreme Court which transferred the trial of the case from Ujjain to Nagpur. The judge there acquitted the accused on the ground that the prosecution had failed to put up the evidence.

Outright Perilous!

An egoist as the head of the government is bad enough. An egotist is a nuisance as his constant chant of I…, I…., I….. jars on the listeners’ years. But when he loses touch with the reality and starts believing his imaginary achievements to be his real achievements, that’s outright perilous.